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Published: March 25th 2010
“I wondered how similar Hong Kong was to the China I have known and loved. Would you be able to smoke everywhere? Is English as widespread as my research has told me? Am I going to have to pay £5 for a bottle of water? What would the weather and pollution be like?”
First impressions are very odd indeed. The train station was huge, empty, clean and modern. All the signs were in English first, then Cantonese. In the taxi, the driver spoke English, was driving and sitting on the left hand side, and it contained seat belts! The streets were full of people, western people at that, and at 12:30 at night, everything was lit as if it were day. There were non-smoking signs everywhere, which were actually being obeyed, and in the few places where you were able too, I noticed native Hong Kong women smoking which is near unheard-of in the mainland.
We arrived at Mirador Mansions where I had heard it would be the cheapest place in Kowloon - a massive old 16 story building converted into blocks of ‘hostels’. It was all very confusing as we made our trip up to the 13th
floor. There were signs for every hostel but ours. We wandered around until someone grabbed us and told us we’d arrive, although there was no sign anywhere. She knew our names so it was set. She worried us with tales of stolen goods and no lockers and offered us an upgrade to a 3 bed dorm for an extra $10 HK. We decided to take it as we just wanted to put our bags down. The room was very weird. I can’t really describe it, but it had no windows. The whole building had no common spaces, no character and no one was polite; not necessarily rude or anything, just none of the charm of the Chinese on the mainland; Hong Kong is very different and very expensive.
The next day was Els birthday. We got up at a reasonable time and headed out to see what Hong Kong had to offer in the way of food.
As soon as we stepped out onto the streets we were harassed constantly by a stream of Indians shouted ‘copy bags, copy watches’ at us. They were very persistent too - grabbing us by the shoulders and thrusting things in our
Hong Kong Baby yeeeeeeah!
This is one of the picture I have been dreaming about snappingfaces! It was all very disenchanting and my first impressions of the Asian capital were not tremendous.
I had strange terriaki beef thing, for 46 HKD, very expensive for what it was. I must add now that I receive 10 Chinese RMB and 12 HKD for my pound (so very similar), to put this into spending power for example, local brand cigarettes are 4 RMB on the mainland (that’s 40p) and 60 HKD (£5). With the UK-style food prices and the induced stomach trouble (the first of my trip I may add), I decided it would be bakery snacks from now on!
We hopped down in the scorching sun to visitors centre at the pier and I took in my first views of stunning Hong Kong Island! Incredible, and my impressions started to change. I booked us a free Tai Chi class at the brisk hour of 8am and a Tea Appreciation class at 4pm for Monday 22nd. We then jumped on the ferry to the Island for the respectable price of 2 HKD (18p) to try to find the Vietnamese embassy to arrange our visas. We had difficulty finding it so it took a little longer than
expected. Impressed with the service, we left within the hour and headed to the Bank of China Tower for a free ride up the lift to the 43rd floor. The view was again, outstanding. I found the city even more impressive than New York - and cleaner too.
With the remaining hours of the day we headed to the Peak Tram to get reputably the best views from the island. It was touristy as hell, with expensive prices and lots and lots of visitors crammed into the queue (yes, another difference from China - people queue in HK!). After about an hour we finally reached the old-style tram. It drove up a disturbingly steep track and the journey up 500m took barely five minutes. We had opted for a return ticket with no entry to the observatory, which I would recommend to anyone visiting the city. We took the escalator as high up the building as one can go for free (which happened to be Burger King) and waited till it go dark to observe the city by night for free from the restaurant balcony.
I was suddenly taken over with amazement. It is truly the peak of modern
The Temple
The objects hanging from the ceiling are all insense burners! architecture and the city must be seem from high up to get its full wonder. I was very lucky to witness it on a rare and clear day/night.
On returning to the hostel we had planned for a night on the town for Els birthday drinks, however she got stuck booking flights (due to the unknown fact that we had to specify an exactly entry date for our Vietnam visas) and before we knew it, it was midnight and we decided to postpone it till the next day, particularly with my receiving of a meet-up request from a New Yorker (also travelling to the Philippines this week) from Travelbuddies.com.
On Saturday, after my first shower in a week and some electricity hassles we walked to find a bakery. We grabbed a few bits and pieces and took them to Kowloon Park. The park was an oasis of calm, bird song and greenery in the midst of the mad city that is Kowloon.
I had decided to spend the day exploring this part of town, so we started by walking up main street to the Jade market, Ladies Market and the Flower Markets, conveniently located on ‘Jade Street’,
‘Ladies Street’ and ‘Flower Street’. It is worth mentioning at this point that HK is one of the most pedestrian-friendly places in the world (cars actually stop at pedestrian crossings and know how to drive etc) and arguably contains the most efficient and easy to use transport systems on the planet.
The markets were as you would expect; once you have seen one row of trinkets, you have pretty much seen them all, but still, we walked about 20km so it was a good day. In between we also visited the Tin Hau Temple, which is still an active Buddhist place of worship. The temple was markedly different to all the others I have visited. It was divided into sections of prayer, one of which had women singing and kowtowing to idols, and another had a ceiling completely covered in burning incense.
After taking the impressive metro back to the hostel, we prepared ourselves for the arrival of my travel buddy, Alan and I had also contacted Annette from Xi’an for the last few weeks and found she was arriving this evening too, so we waited for everyone to arrive and headed off to dinner and a bar
Lantau Island
Unexpected beaches! of Alan’s choosing.
We decided to head for SoHo as we missed it out on the previous days exploration of Central HK. We rode the longest escalator in the world to the cobbled streets and tiny, steep alleys in the very expensive area, but when in HK you must expect this. We settled on a lovely Italian place and proceeded to Lan Kwai Fong Bar Street.
They weren’t kidding when they named it so. We first viewed/heard it from above. The square of cocktail, Irish and pricey looking bars spilled music and people into all the surrounding streets. It was absolutely crawling with westerners. On first impression I was completely revolted; if I wanted crap music, high prices and a lot of wasted British people I would have gone to London, but the place really grew on me. You can’t drink in the street in London! We each bought drinks for 70 HKD (approx £7) and mingled with the droves of drunk tourists for hours on end. I eventually came across a bar selling Strongbow and felt quite content there for a while. We stayed up till 6am partying the night away, said goodbye to Alan (who was
brilliant) and fell into a much deserved slumber.
Sunday was the day for the worlds’ largest Buddha statue on Lantau Island (the one I missed in Xi’an apparently doesn’t count because it is calved into a cliff and not a stand-alone statue)
Annette joined us after we had another fill from the bakery and after an hour’s ferry ride and a 45 minutes bus we were at the centre of Hong Kong’s largest Island. The sights on the journey were just as breathtaking as Hong Kong Island but for completely different reasons. We passed tropical forest, sweeping beaches, Mediterranean looking houses and the island seemed quite tranquil and very beautiful.
The village surrounding the Buddha was not quite as peaceful but was just as exquisite. The winding roads took us to the foot of the 400 steps surrounding the magnificent gold sculpture. I really can’t describe how fantastic and mysterious I always find these monuments. This one was surrounded by another 6 smaller Buddha’s (each about 10 ft tall) offering various gifts towards the main attraction. When we were done traversing the area we took the bus back down the mountain to find the China-Beach Restaurant we had
been recommended by El’s friends from Guangzhou.
By pure luck we ended up exploring the serene bay in the right direction and stumbled across the white-washed building, adorned with a balcony overlooking the South China Sea. The food was wonderful (and western sized portions) and, stuffed as were, we ordered desserts that we all missed from home. I hated the ferry journey over there so much that I opted for the more expensive fast ferry back to Kowloon and got an early-ish night.
Monday I awoke very nervous about my first airport excursion alone and the impending trip to the Philippines. On the way to my tai chi class I fussed about the cheapest way to get to the airport and the general logistics of the evening.
The class soon took my mind off it. Tai Chi is an incredible way to start the day. It must be done slowly and gracefully and is all about yin and yang. It is however, a lot tougher on the muscles than it looks! The tranquil zither music and the instructor’s Chinese accent were very calming and I enjoyed it a great deal. If I could remember the moves and
positions I would certainly try to practice every day.
After a bit more fuss over my trip and the nightmare of packing we went to an Irish pub for a 100 HKD set meal of cauliflower soup, cottage pie and vanilla ice cream! Annette joined us again and we bummed about the pub and hostel until it was time to head off for Tea Class.
We arrived a few minutes late and were forced to take the seats up front like the truants we were. I also found this one incredibly enjoyable. The woman instructing the class on the art of brewing, selecting, appreciating and etiquette of tea drinking was a lovely and stunning young woman who spoke in a cute and soft voice with great enthusiasm. There is a whole world behind the culture of Chinese tea and I have been aching to discover more for months. I love how much they care about everything in the tiniest detail.
Before I knew it, it was time for the airport. I said a heart-aching goodbye to El and Annette, having had a lot of fun with them this week and boarded my bus, bound for the airport and
Tea Class
A flower popped out of the tea-leaf bundle! Sweet! the hostel of doom...
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Juggling Matt
non-member comment
Awesome!!
Your travel blog always makes me smile, as you seem to be having such a great time!! :D Your fist beach in years!! and it has a tree on it, now that is cool... :P hope you continue to enjoy yourself and I look forward to reading youur next entry :) *hugs* Matt xxx